Koch 

The  Growth  and  Importance  of 
the  Cornell  Dante  Collection 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


The  Growth  &  Importance  of  the 

Cornell  Dante  Collection 

By  THEODORE  WESLEY  KOCH 


ITHACA     -    NEW    TORK    •    MDCCCC 


SOME    DAXTK    TREASURES    UNDKK    LOCK    AND    KKY. 


SOME    DANTE    TREASURES    UNDER    LOCK    AND    KEY. 


The  Growth  &  Importance  of  the 

Cornell  Dante  Collection 

By  THEODORE  WESLEY^OCH 


CORNELL   UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 


ITHACA     •    NEW    YORK    -    MDCCCC 


"PQ. 
4-  330 


[Reprinted  from  the  Cornell  Magazine,  June,  1900.] 


THE  GROWTH  AND  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE 


CORNELL  DANTE  COLLECTION. 


N  May,  1894,  when  Professor  Crane  gave  in 
the  CORNELL  MAGAZINE  some  account  of  the 
Dante  Collection  which  in  the  preceding  year 
Mr.  Willard  Fiske  had  brought  together 
and  presented  to  Cornell  University,  the 
bound  volumes  on  the  shelves  numbered 
about  3,000, — certainly  a  very  remarkable 
number  of  works  on  one  author  to  be  gathered  in  so  short 
a  time.  A  finding-list  was  then  in  course  of  preparation. 
Today  the  collection  numbers  nearly  7,000  separately  bound 
volumes  and  there  is  about  to  be  published  an  annotated 
bibliographical  catalogue  in  two  large  octavo  volumes,  each 
of  three  hundred  closely  printed  two-column  pages.  By 
the  publication  of  its  catalogue  this  collection  will  be  made 
useful  to  the  students  of  the  country  at  large. 

It  is  difficult  to  give  the  reader  who  has  not  Helved  into 
the  literature  of  Dante  an  adequate  idea  of  the  size  and 
richness  of  the  Fiske  Collection.  Its  book-plate  aptly  styles 
it  as  a  "  biblioteca  dantesca."  It  is  indeed  a  veritable  li- 
brary in  itself  and  one  of  no  mean  size.  Perhaps  the  state- 
ment that  the  manuscript  card  catalogue  covered  more  than 
25,000  library  cards  of  the  regulation  size  (3x5  inches) 
will  convey  some  idea  as  to  the  extent  of  the  collection  and 
the  amount  of  work  required  to  catalogue  it  on  the  rather 
minute  and  laborious  plan  adopted  some  four  years  ago. 
Of  the  Italian  text  of  the  Divina  Commedia,  complete  and 


18461 £ 


2  The  Growth  and  Importance  of 

incomplete,  there  are  some  460  editions  in  this  collection, 
exclusive  of  those  entered  under  "  Selections"  and  omitting 
also  most  of  the  texts  contained  in  works  about  Dante. 
Translations  of  Dante's  masterpiece  by  303  different  hands 
and  into  twenty-five  languages  and  eleven  dialects  of  Italy 
are  found  here.  •  The  best  argument  for  this  multitude  of 
translations  is  that  given  on  the  title-page  of  Bridel's  letter 
on  the  manner  of  translating  Dante:  "Duo  dum  faciunt 
idem,  non  est  idem."  "  Plus  on  etudie  le  Dante,"  says  M. 
Mesnard  in  the  preface  to  his  own  translation,  "  plus  on  ad- 
mire la  puissance  de  son  genie  ;  et,  amesure  qu'on  1'admire 
davantage,  la  seduction  devient  plus  forte  de  reproduire, 
dans  tin  autre  idiome,  les  beatites,  encore  si  netives,  de  la 
Divine  Comedie.  Toute  version,  parait  incomplete,  infidele, 
et  chacun  porte  en  soi,  selon  sa  maniere  de  sentir,  le  besoin 
d'une  traduction  nouvelle."  It  would  seem  useless  to  hope 
for  a  final  translation  of  a  foreign  classic  into  any  of  the 
living  tongues. 

Many  happy  circumstances  united  to  enable  Mr.  Fiske  to 
amass  this  wonderful  collection.  Chief  among  these  were 
his  long  experience  both  as  a  librarian  and  as  a  private  col- 
lector, his  residence  of  many  years  in  Italy  with  frequent 
trips  to  the  various  European  book-marts,  his  knowledge  of 
the  best  methods  of  hunting  down  rare  books  and  his 
ability  to  pay  for  them,  all  combined  with  a  systematic  and 
enthusiastic  devotion  to  the  work.  A  striking  illustration 
of  the  completeness  of  his  collection  is  the  number  of  forms 
in  which  many  of  the  articles  on  Dante  are  to  be  had.  Fre- 
quently you  will  find  there  a  particular  magazine  article 
extracted  bodily  from  the  number  in  which  it  appeared,  then 
a  separate  reprint,  "  deprint,"  "  Abdruck,"  or  whatever 
you  prefer  to  call  it,  and  if  the  article  has  been  included  in 
any  of  the  author's  collected  writings  you  may  generally 
count  upon  Mr.  Fiske' s  having  secured  the  volume  in 
question.  Still  further,  if  it  has  been  translated  into  some 
other  language,  the  translation  has  been  sought  out  and 
usually  secured.  And  where  the  quest  for  any  of  these 


The  Cornell  Dante  Collection.  3 

later  forms  has  failed,  the  cataloguer  has  taken  upon  him- 
self the  task  of  noting  that  such  a  reprint  or  translation  of 
a  particular  work  has  been  published,  thus  filling  out  the 
bibliographical  history  of  the  various  items  as  far  as  prac- 
ticable. Another  remarkable  thing  about  the  collection  is 
the  enormous  number  of  clippings  preserved  in  scrap-books. 
They  have  been  cut  from  magazines  and  newspapers  and 
embrace  original  articles,  reviews  and  polemics,  running 
sometimes  through  half  a  dozen  numbers  of  a  periodical. 
Both  the  scrap-books  and  their  pages  being  numbered,  these 
clippings  are  as  easily  catalogued  and  as  accessible  as  if 
they  were  lengthy  articles,  separately  bound,  with  distinct 
shelf-numbers.  Then,  too,  there  are  portfolios  of  various 
sizes  for  loose  portraits  of  Dante  and  illustrations  to  his 
works,  a  photograph  album  for  Italian  views  associated  with 
Dante's  memory,  and  letter-books  for  the  preservation  of 
general  correspondence  connected  with  the  making  of  the 
collection.  That  the  books  were  brought  together  by  an 
enthusiastic  collector  is  evidenced  by  the  remarkably  large 
number  of  autograph  copies,  to  say  nothing  of  inserted 
letters  from  the  authors.  These  letters  contain  much  in- 
formation which  had  not  yet  found  its  way  into  the  biblio- 
graphies ;  they  have  frequently  been  drawn  upon  in  making 
the  catalogue  of  the  collection. 

The  aim  of  the  Cornell  Dante  Catalogue  is  necessarily 
bibliographical  rather  than  critical.  Yet  by  means  of  the 
notes  quoted  from  various  authoritative  writers,  and  by  refer- 
ring to  the  numerous  reviews  entered  under  the  books,  one 
can  easily  arrive  at  the  received  estimate  of  a  work  of  any 
importance.  The  cataloguer's  business  was  to  enter  every- 
thing which  came  to  him  bearing  in  any  way  on  Dante. 
Those  who  think  like  the  reviewer  of  Petzholdt's  "  Biblio- 
graphia  dan  tea",  in  the  Athen&um  for  Sept.  13,  1880,  that 
a  work  ' '  On  the  Syntax  and  Style  of  the  Predecessors  of 
Dante"  has  but  little  more  right  to  an  entry  in  a  Dante 
bibliography  than  Southey's  "  Doctor  "  to  a  place  in  a  medi- 
cal library,  can  find  much  to  cavil  at  in  the  breadth  of  sub- 


4  The  Growth  and  Importance  of 

jects  covered  in  this  collection.  Those,  however,  who  have 
had  much  to  do  with  Dante  literature  know  how  diverse  are 
the  questions  which  have  grown  up  both  about  him  and  his 
work,  how  as  the  foremost  representative  of  his  time  he  is 
again  and  again  singled  out  for  analysis  as  the  embodiment 
of  mediaeval  thought  on  the  greatest  variety  of  topics.  As 
far  back  as  the  sixteenth  century  the  universality  of  the  sub- 
jects into  the  service  of  which  Dante  had  been  pressed  for 
purposes  of  elucidation  and  illustration  was  epitomized  by 
Benedetto  Varchi  in  his  remark  :  "  Dicendo  Dante,  mi  pare, 
insieme  con  questo  nome,  dire  ogni  cosa."  Florentine 
chronicles  and  histories,  manuals  of  Italian  literature  and 
miscellaneous  material  illustrating  Dante's  life  and  themes 
are  included  in  this  collection.  Dante  has  been  rightly 
spoken  of  as  one  of  the  three  most  elastic  subjects, — the 
other  two  being  the  Bible  and  man's  conscience. 

The  value  of  much  of  the  bibliographical  work  that  has 
been  done  on  Dante  by  Italians  and  Germans  has  been 
lessened  by  the  inexcusable  practice  of  translating  and  even 
paraphrasing  the  titles  of  books  in  languages  foreign  to  the 
compiler.*  The  aim  of  the  Cornell  Catalogue  is  to  give  the 
titles  as  they  are  found  on  the  books  themselves,  no  matter 
whether  they  be  in  Hungarian,  Polish,  Russian,  Slovenian,  or 
some  other  language  with  which  the  cataloguer  can  hardly  be 
expected  to  be  on  terms  of  easiest  familiarity.  The  quaint 
and  obsolete  spelling  of  the  older  books  is  retained,  and, 
whatever  has  been  added  to  the  titles  by  the  cataloguer  is 

*This  is  true,  for  example,  of  the  "  Bibliografia  alfabetica"  in 
Scartazzmi's  "  Dante  in  Germania,"  1881-83,  and  of  Jaccarino's 
"  Biblioteca  dantesca,"  1893,  where  all  the  German  titles  are 
translated  into  Italian.  In  the  latter  work  we  also  find  Miss 
Sayer's  translation  of  the  "Banquet"  (II  Convito)  entered  as  the 
"Bouquet"  of  Dante  Alighieri,  Hasenclever  becomes  Balenclever, 
Kopisch  becomes  Hopisch,  etc.  How  can  one  use  such  a  catalogue  as 
a  check  list?  It  requires  either  an  extraordinary  ability  at  guessing 
the  real  names  of  the  authors,  or  a  perfect  familiarity  with  the  biblio- 
graphy of  the  subject,  and  in  any  case  an  inordinate  amount  of 
patience. 


The  Cornell  Dante   Collection.  5 

bracketed  and  in  English.  It  is  hoped  that  the  pains  taken 
with  the  proof-reading  of  the  Cornell  Catalogue  have  reduced 
the  number  of  inaccurate  transcriptions  to  a  minimum.  I 
know  how  annoying  it  is  to  find  English  titles  recorded  as 
carelessly  as  they  are  in  Ferrazzi's  "  Manuale  dantesco. "  I 
trust  that  Italians  will  not  meet  with  the  same  annoyance  in 
consulting  Italian  titles  in  my  work. 

Some  students  of  Dante  have  felt  that  the  presence  of  a 
large  collection  of  books  on  the  subject  was  a  check  on  in- 
vestigation (or  at  least  on  the  publication  of  their  own 
views  about  this  or  that  matter)  and  so  defeated  its  own 
ends.  "  One  sometimes  asks  one's  self,  in  moments  of  de- 
spondency," says  Mr.  Irving  Babbitt  in  the  Atlantic 
Monthly  for  March  1897,  "  whether  the  main  achievement 
of  the  nineteenth  century  will  not  have  been  to  accumulate 
a  mass  of  machinery  that  will  break  the  twentieth  century's 
back.  The  Harvard  College  library  already  contains,  for 
the  special  study  of  Dante  alone,  over  eighteen  hundred 
volumes  ;  *  about  three- fourths  of  which,  it  may  be  remarked 
in  passing,  are  nearly  or  quite  worthless,  and  only  tend  to 
the  confusion  of  good  counsel.  Merely  to  master  the  special 
apparatus  for  the  study  of  Dante  and  his  times,  the  student,  if 
he  conforms  to  the  standard  set  for  the  modern  specialist,  will 
run  the  risk  of  losing  his  intellectual  symmetry  and  sense  of 
proportion,  precisely  the  qualities  of  which  he  will  stand 
most  in  need  for  the  higher  interpretation  of  Dante."  The 

*  The  Harvard  Dante  Collection  must  now  number  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  2,500  volumes.  It  is  unfair  to  compare  the  Harvard  and  Cor- 
nell Collections  by  their  respective  volume  numbers,  inasmuch  as 
Harvard  has  been  in  the  habit  of  binding  together  a  number  of  pam- 
phlets by  one  author  or  on  one  topic,  while  in  the  Fiske  Collection 
the  great  majority  of  the  items  are  bound  separately,  no  matter  what 
their  size.  Moreover,  many  volumes  of  miscellaneous  essays  and  the 
like,  bought  by  Mr.  Fiske  because  they  contained  something  on 
Dante,  have  been  placed  on  the  Cornell  Dante  shelves,  while  the  same 
volumes  at  Harvard  might  be  found  scattered  throughout  the  library 
according  as  to  where  they  best  fitted  into  the  general  scheme  of 
classification  in  vogue  at  that  institution. 


position  here  taken  is  somewhat  akin  to  that  of  the  Italian 
priest,  Matteo  Roniani,  who  in  his  1864  edition  of  the  Coni- 
media  remarked  "  che  per  correggere  la  Divina  Commedia 
non  occorrono  testi,  ma  teste."  But  only  by  fresh  and  con- 
tinual expounding  of  Dante  can  we  bring  him  to  the  atten- 
tion of  the  ever  changing  reading  public.  What  are  the 
majority  of  books  on  Aristotle  and  Plato  but  rehabilitations 
of  time-worn  facts?  Yet  these  old  truths,  when  dressed  up 
anew,  reach  a  new  audience  of  people  who  might  otherwise 
remain  totally  unacquainted  with  them.  Many  of  the  books 
in  the  Fiske  Collection  have  undoubtedly  had  their  day,  and 
having  served  their  purpose,  great  or  humble  as  it  may  have 
been,  are  now  of  value  only  as  records  of  the  methods  of  in- 
terpreting Dante  to  previous  generations.  Other  items  in 
abundance  are  but  bibliographical  curiosities,  serving  only 
to  elucidate  the  literary  history  of  some  expounder  of  Dante, 
or  the  fortune  of  Dante's  own  works  in  the  world  of  type 
and  paper. 

If  it  were  true  that  great  bibliographical  collections  are 
but  bewildering  to  the  student,  then  the  British  Museum, 
the  storehouse  of  some  of  the  greatest  collections  in  the 
world,  should  form  the  most  confusing  of  literary  work- 
shops. But  in  how  many  authors'  prefaces  have  we  seen 
the  opposite  testimony  !  Hundreds  of  scholars  have 
gladly  paid  their  tribute  to  the  wise  and  generous  manage- 
ment of  the  English  national  depository  of  books  from 
which  they  have  received  the  greatest  benefit,  indeed  with- 
out the  enjoyment  of  which  they  would  have  been  compelled 
to  hunt  in  dozens  of  scattered  libraries  for  the  literature  of 
their  various  subjects  and  even  then  would  have  missed  the 
priceless  advantage  of  having  had  the  works  simultaneously 
at  hand,  to  compare  and  weigh  them  one  against  another. 
The  truth  is  that  the  great  library  is  a  source  of  joy  or  of 
despair  according  as  to  how  the  investigator  is  disposed 
toward  his  work.  If  he  is  a  man  of  vitality  and  dis- 
criminating powers  he  will  not  be  daunted  by  the  presence 
of  the  proportionately  large  part  of  the  literature  of  his 


The   Cornell  Dante   Collection.  7 

subject  which  he  never  hopes  nor  wants  to  look  into  ;  he 
will  know  how  to  choose  his  reading  and  will  be  able  to 
separate  the  wheat  from  the  chaff  without  threshing  the 
whole  stack.  If,  on  the  contrary,  he  does  not  know  exactly 
what  he  wants,  or  is  in  doubt  as  to  how  to  go  about  his  in- 
vestigations, then  he  had  better  do  his  reading  in  some  small 
library  in  which  the  books  have  been  collected  of  necessity 
on  some  eclectic  or  critical  principle.  Some  readers  will 
never  learn  to  distinguish  for  themselves  the  useless  from 
the  valuable,  the  sentimental  and  aesthetical  outpourings  of 
a  dilettante  from  the  results  of  scholarship  and  critical  re- 
search. 

Illustrating  this  brief  article  about  the  collection  will  be 
found  two  views  of  corners  in  the  library  stack  where  the 
books  are  housed.  These  illustrations  will  give  some  idea 
of  what  I  have  tried  to  do  to  relieve  the  harshness  of  iron 
floors  and  fire-proof  construction.  When  I  first  assumed 
charge  of  the  collection  it  seemed  to  me  rather  a  pity  that 
books  having  such  a  claim  on  lovers  of  literature  and  art 
should  have  such  dismally  bare  surroundings.  There  was 
no  inviting  place  near  the  books  themselves  where  the 
visitor  to  the  collection  could  consult  them  and  keep  in 
touch  with  anything  poetical.  There  was  a  prosaic  lack  of 
any  indication  of  the  presence  of  this  wealth  of  material  on 
one  of  the  great  world  poets.  The  collection  suffered  for 
the  want  of  such  accommodations  as  those  given  to  the 
books  of  Ex-President  White.  No  separate  room  was 
available  for  the  Fiske  Collection,  and,  moreover,  its  classi- 
fication as  one  division  of  Italian  literature  almost  necessitated 
its  being  kept  near-  the  general  subject  of  Romance  litera- 
ture. So,  making  the  best  of  these  circumstances,  I  thought 
of  hanging  a  few  portraits  of  Dante  on  the  walls  of 
the  stack  and  at  the  ends  of  the  book-presses.  Then  I 
added  a  few  portrait  busts  and  reproductions  of  some  of  the 
more  interesting  pictures  inspired  by  Dante's  life  and  works. 
The  acquisition  of  Hollyer's  fine  platinotype  copies  of  the 
paintings  by  Rossetti  made  me  question  the  advisability  of 


8  The   Groivth  and  Importance  of 

putting  them  away  in  portfolios  where  they  would  be  rarely 
seen  ;  and  so  they  were  added  to  the  collection  of  framed 
pictures.  Eventually  the  latter  included  fifty-six  pieces. 
A  visitor  to  the  library,  whose  pictorial  ideas  concerning 
Dante  had  apparently  been  derived  from  Dore's  illustrations 
to  the  Inferno,  admired  these  illustrations  of  a  very  different 
kind  and  remarked  :  "Why,  I  always  thought  Dante  pictures 
were  terrible,  but  these  are  not  at  all  so  !  "  For  the  benefit 
of  such  visitors  I  have  compiled  a  hand-list  of  these  framed 
portraits  and  pictures,  giving  in  guide-book  style  some 
elementary  information  about  the  originals  and  the  episodes 
upon  which  they  are  based. 

It  is,  of  course,  to  be  understood  that  this  is  not  a  repre- 
sentative collection  of  art  about  Dante.  Many  things  which 
I  should  like  to  have  seen  on  the  walls  were  not  procurable 
in  the  form  of  separate  reproductions  suitable  for  framing. 
Botticelli,  for  example,  ought  certainly  to  be  found  in  a  col- 
lection aiming  to  give  a  fair  representation  of  the  "  poetical 
in  art"  about  Dante.  But  although  Botticelli's  drawings 
have  been  excellently  reproduced,  they  are  not  to  be  had 
singly.  The  entire  series  can  be  found  in  portfolio  and  book 
form  on  the  shelves  of  the  Fiske  Collection.  The  catalogue 
of  the  latter  contains  an  appendix  of  some  thirty  pages  on  the 
general  subject  of  Iconography.  Besides  lists  of  reproduc- 
tions of  portraits  and  pictorial  illustrations,  this  division 
also  enumerates  examples  of  "  Sculpture  relating  to  Dante," 
"  Monuments  and  Statues,"  "  Early  Italian  Art  as  illustra- 
tive of  the  Divina  Commedia,"  and  "  Reproductions  from 
Manuscripts."  The  resources  of  the  entire  University  Li- 
brary have  been  drawn  upon  for  the  -enrichment  of  these 
lists. 

Unless  kept  up  to  date  such  special  collections  always  de- 
teriorate in  usefulness.  People  will  continue  to  write  on 
Dante  notwithstanding  the  wishes  of  collectors  and  cata- 
loguers who  are  trying  in  vain  to  keep  up  with  the  subject. 
Readers  and  students  will  continue  to  want  the  latest  word 
on  this  as  on  other  topics.  And  so  the  mere  possession  of 


The   Cornell  Dante   Collection.  9 

such  a  treasure  as  Cornell  has  in  its  Dante  Collection  carries 
with  it  the  responsibility  of  giving  it  attention  and  fostering 
care.  But  above  all,  the  presence  of  these  books  should 
have  a  practical  result  in  furthering  the  study  of  Dante  and 
Italian  literature  at  Cornell  University.  I  not  only  believe 
that  there  is  a  healthy  interest  in  Dante  among  the  students 
and  residents  of  Ithaca,  but  I  also  think  that  if  properly 
stimulated  this  interest  will  be  greatly  increased  by  the  pres- 
ence of  the  superb  Fiske  Collection.  Encouragement  should 
be  given  to  the  study  of  Dante  by  yearly  lectures,  such  as 
have  been  given  for  a  dozen  years  or  more  at  University 
College,  L/ondon,  and  within  the  past  few  years  ar  Florence 
and  Milan  under  the  auspices  of  the  young  and  active  So- 
cieta  Dantesca  Italiana.  Oxford  not  only  has  its  Dante 
Society  but  can  also  claim  for  its  own  the  profound  scholar, 
Dr.  Edward  Moore,  who  has  done  so  much  for  the  more 
serious  study  of  Dante  in  England.  Recently  the  Dante 
Society  of  London  has  held  public  meetings  for  the  discus- 
sion of  questions  connected  with  the  subject,  and  under  its 
auspices  some  of  the  foremost  English  students  of  Dante 
have  given  addresses.  The  English  University  Extension 
Society,  through  its  most  able  and  competent  lecturer  the 
Rev.  Philip  H.  Wicksteed,  has  aroused  a  wide-spread 
interest  in  Dante  by  numerous  courses  of  lectures  given 
throughout  England.  The  American  University  Extension 
Society  has  within  the  last  year  instituted  a  course  of  six 
lectures  on  the  Divine  Comedy,  given  by  Prof.  E.  H.  Griggs. 
The  latter  might  well  be  invited  to  give  these  lectures  at 
Cornell.  Another  year,  perhaps,  Prof.  L.  Oscar  Kuhns  of 
Wesleyan  University,  an  enthusiastic  student  of  Dante,  might 
be  prevailed  upon  to  address  an  Ithaca  audience.  It  is  to 
be  regretted  that  the  dean  of  all  American  students  of  Dante, 
Prof.  Charles  Eliot  Norton  of  Harvard,  has  already  so 
many  claims  upon  his  time  that,  owing  to  the  distance  of 
Ithaca  from  Cambridge,  we  can  hardly  hope  to  be  favored 
with  a  hearing  of  his  lectures  on  Dante  delivered  on  the 
Turnbull  foundation  at  Johns  Hopkins  University. 


io  The   Cornell  Dante   Collection. 

It  is  interesting  in  this  connection  to  read  the  quaint 
memorial  addressed  to  the  priors  of  Florence,  half  a  cen- 
tury after  the  death  of  Dante,  petitioning  for  the  establish- 
ment of  the  chair  to  which  Boccaccio  was  the  first  to  be .  ap- 
pointed. The  document,  dated  August  21,  1373,  begins 
thus  :  "In  behalf  of  many  citizens  of  the  city  of  Florence, 
desirous  as  much  for  themselves  as  for  other  citizens  aspir- 
ing to  virtues,  as  well  as  for  their  children  and  descendants, 
to  be  instructed  in  the  book  of  Dante,— alike  for  the  re- 
sulting disinclination  towards  vice  and  the  acquisition  of 
virtue. — they  respectfully  petition  your  excellencies  to  deign 
to  provide,  as  you  may  elect,  one  worthy  and  learned  man, 
well-informed  in  the  knowledge  of  this  kind  of  poetry,  for 
such  time  as  you  will,  not  more  than  one  year,  to  read  in 
the  city  to  all  who  may  wish  to  hear,  the  book  which  is 
popularly  called  The  Dante." 

It  might  be  well  for  Cornellians  and  Ithacans  similarly 
interested  in  Dante  to  petition  the  University  Trustees  to 
provide  for  some  public  exposition  of  the  poet's  life  and 
work.  The  experiment  need  not  be  costly  and  if  unsuc- 
cessful could  be  readily  discontinued.  The  University  now 
owns  much  suitable  material  for  an  interesting  and  instructive 
Dante  exhibit  which  might  be  held  during  the  term  of  the 
lectures.  Such  an  exhibit  would  make  the  undergraduates 
more  familiar  with  the  collection  than  can  be  ordinarily  ex- 
pected when  these  treasures  are  stored  away  in  a  stack  to 
which  they  do  not  have  access. 

Theodore  Wesley  Koch. 


184615 


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